12.19.16

Probably the most surprising thing about today’s announcement that Softbank is investing $1B in OneWeb as part of a $1.2B funding round, is the lack of a spoiler announcement from SpaceX. That’s happened in the past on both of the two occasions when OneWeb made a major announcement, in January 2015 (when OneWeb announced its initial agreements with Qualcomm and Virgin) and in June 2015 (when OneWeb announced its initial $500M equity round).

In fact one of the more important fights that is going on behind the scenes is related to regulatory priority in terms of ITU filings, where SpaceX is some way behind. OneWeb is acknowledged to be have the first filing for an NGSO Ku-band system, but also needs access to the Ka-band for its gateway links. That led Telesat to request that the FCC deny OneWeb’s petition for a US licenses, based on “Canadian ITU filings associated with Telesat’s Ka-band NGSO system [that] date back to 2012 and January 6, 2015″ whereas “the earliest ITU filing date priority for OneWeb is January 18, 2015.” LeoSat also claimed that it had priority over OneWeb in November 2016, based on “French ITU filings for LeoSat’s Ka-band MCSAT-2 LEO-2 network [that] date back to November 25, 2014.”

However, OneWeb now appears to have attempted something of an end run around these objections, acquiring rights to the French MCSAT LEO with an ITU advance publication date of April 2, 2013 network from Thales Alenia Space. That’s particularly odd because LeoSat, which states specifically in its FCC application that it “will deploy the LeoSat System in conjunction with Thales Alenia Space,” might now find TAS’s own filings being used against it.

UPDATE (12/20): I’m told that the relevant ITU coordination dates for the different Ka-band NGSO proposals are as follows:
Telesat (Comstellation): December 20, 2012
LeoSat (MCSAT2 LEO2): November 25, 2014
OneWeb’s newly acquired MCSAT LEO filing: December 3, 2014
SpaceX: December 27, 2014
OneWeb’s original Ka-band filing: January 18, 2015.
That would imply that OneWeb has now jumped ahead of SpaceX at the ITU, but remains behind Telesat and LeoSat, although I’m sure there will be many arguments to come.

All this fighting to be first in line at the ITU will also have to take into account the FCC’s attempt to clarify the rules for new NGSO systems in an NPRM released on Thursday, December 15. The FCC’s rules state that NGSO systems should share spectrum through the “avoidance of in-line interference events” and the NPRM proposed new language in an attempt to make this more explicit. However, this language is far from clear about whether the sharing of spectrum is required on a global basis or just in the US, specifically the key paragraph in the newly proposed §25.261 states:

The pertinent question here, which is left unresolved by the proposed changes shown in the italicized text above, are whether a “satellite network” consists of both an FCC-licensed satellite system and the earth station it is communicating with, and if so whether both of these or just the satellite system itself must “operate under a Commission license or grant of U.S. market access” according the new text. If it is the former, then the new rules will clearly apply only in the US (where the earth station is licensed by the FCC), whereas if it is the latter, then the rules could be taken to imply that any recipient of a satellite system license from the FCC in the current processing round may have to agree to comply with these sharing rules on a global basis.

It therefore seems that regulatory lawyers will have plenty of work for the next year arguing on behalf of their clients. However, OneWeb will have the money to move forward quickly and extend its lead over other NGSO systems, apart from O3b, which is currently building its next batch of 8 satellites. It remains to be seen if other systems will catch-up, but Telesat (which has already ordered two test satellites) is potentially best positioned to be a third player, especially if it can secure Canadian government backing for universal service in the Arctic region.

Then we need to see how the market evolves. Greg Wyler highlighted his ambitions for OneWeb to serve 100M people by 2025 and after the alliance with Softbank, this will most likely be in the form of cellular backhaul from tens or hundreds of thousands of small cells in remote areas, just as Softbank already does at over 6000 cell sites in Japan using IPStar capacity. In contrast, O3b should continue its plans to serve highly concentrated demand hotspots, like remote islands needing connectivity to the outside world and large cruise ships.

Most of the other NGSO proposals, including Telesat and SpaceX, appear to have a fairly similar plan to O3b, with small beams used to serve a select number of demand hotspots. So the question then becomes, how much concentrated demand exists for satellite connectivity? O3b will generate roughly $100M of revenues in 2016 and has a clear path to growth into the $200M-$300M range. But is it a multi-billion dollar opportunity and is there room for one or more additional systems in this niche? And can new systems overtake O3b, given its multi-year lead in this market? Only time will tell, but if OneWeb can maintain its focus on low cost cellular backhaul and gain anchor tenant commitments from Softbank, Bharti Airtel and perhaps others, these competitive dynamics are going to be much more of an issue for O3b.